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The fifeat Pfoblem-How it mai be Successfullf 


IMPAKTIAL SUFFRAGE THE REMEDY FOR THE EVILS THAT SURROUND US. 
JUSTICE TO THE BLACK LOYALISTS AS WELL AS MERCY 
TO THE WHITE TRAITORS, 


SPEFXH OF SENATOR YATES, 

OF ILLINOIS, 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1866- 


The Senate, having uniier consideration the 
loint resolution to amend the Constitution of the 
United “States, Senator Yates, of Illinois, ob¬ 
tained the floor, and said: 

Mr. President, I had not expected to say any¬ 
thing upon this question. I preferred to pro¬ 
ceed to a vote immediately. We have had much 
debate upon it. I know the anxiety which gen¬ 
tlemen feel to come to a vote on this question, 
and I shall say but a very few words. 

I have thought that in consequence of the po¬ 
sition which I assumed in the beginning of the 
session, and from the fact that my heart has not 
been entirely in favor of the measures which have 
been proposed, and still not opposed to them, that 
it might become me to explain my views. Tt 
seems to be fashionable in this day for gentlemen 
who presume to think their views should be 
known to avail themselves of the opportunity to 
explain their position. I propose to do so now, 
and that I may speak more directly to the pur¬ 


pose, that I may present the views which I wish 
to present, and which I promise shall detain the 
Senate but a very few minutes in stating, I will 
send to the desk of the Clerk an amendment 


which I propose to be added as an additional 
section to the sections already under considera¬ 
tion, not so much that I care whether a vote is 
taken on it or not, but simply as the basis of the 
very few remarks which I shall submit on the 
present occasion. 

The Secretary read as follows; 

Nothing in the foregoing sections shall abridge 
or in any wise affect the rights, franchises, or pri¬ 
vileges of any inhabitant of the United States, or 
of any State or Territory of the United States, 
guaranteed by the constitutional amendment 
abolishing slavery within the United States, in 
force on the 18th day of December, 1865. 

Mr Yates. At the beginning of the session 
I took the ground that already by the Constitu¬ 
tion of the United Slates, as amended, every 
man in the United States, without regard to 
color or caste of any kind, was a citizen, and I 
offered a resolution to that effect, based upon the 
fact that by the constitutional amendment we 
had abolished slavery within the United States 
and in all the Territories subject to the jurisdic¬ 
tion of the United States, and required Con¬ 
gress by appropriate legislation to enforce that 






2 


provision of the amendment. I offered my reso¬ 
lution declaring what seemed to be an admitted 
fact by Senators of distinguished ability, that 
all constitutions, laws, and regulations of any 
State or Territory of the United States which 
conflicted with this amendment to the Consti¬ 
tution of the United States were null and void. 

I took the ground that this being the fact. Con¬ 
gress should resort to the mode prescribed and 
required by the amendment, and by “appropri¬ 
ate legislation” enforce that provision of the 
Constitution. I assumed the position that that 
amendment did not confer freedom upon the 
slave, or upon anybody, without conferring upon 
him the muniments of freedom, the rights, 
franchises, and privileges that appertain to an 
American citizen or to freedom, in the proper 
acceptation of that term. I took the ground 
laid down in the decision of the Supreme Court 
of the United States in the Died Scott case, 
(which certainly was a hard rule by which I ! 
should be governed,) that when this amend- i 
ment passed the freedman was no longer a 
member of a subject race. He became by virtue : 
of the amendment one of the people, one of the ' 
body politic, and entitled to be protectea in all 
his rights and privileges as one of the citizens 
of the United States. The deductions drawn 
from the decision in the Dred Scott case were 
irresistible. The great Senator from Massachu¬ 
setts [Mr. Sumner] said (the highest compli¬ 
ment ever paid to me in my life) that, in the 
argument I presented, in view of the principles 
laid down in that decision, I had made an unan¬ 
swerable argument. 

I took the ground that the slave in every State 
of the United Stales, being made free by this 
amendment, occupied precisely the same posi¬ 
tion with any other part of the body politic; that 
a son of a colored man born in the State of k 
Wisconsin, under the broad aegis of this amend 
ment to the Constitution had the same rights 
that my son had. I maintained that, by this 
amendment to the Constitution, and by the 
promises of Abraham Lincoln, made in his pro¬ 
clamation of emancipation, the freedman should 
be maintained in his freedom; that being like 
any other man, under this amendment to the 
Constitution he had the same right, the same 
inherent—if you choose, God-given—right; and 
further, if he had not that right naturally, or 
civilly, or politically, he, by his heroic valor, 
his prowess upon many a glorious battle-field, 
where he had fought side by side with our own 
brave sons and brothers, had become entitled 
to it. 

I took the ground which I maintain to-day, 
that suffrage is the only remedy for the evils by 
which we are surrounded. It is the only thing 
that can kill secession; the only thing that can 



divide the South or introduce a loyal‘element 
there which will be a counterbalancing force; 
the only thing which will secure us a loyal rep-e- 
sentation from the South and a loyal people in 
the South. 

I further held that if we went before the 
American people, without indirection or dis¬ 
guise upon this broad proposition, we should 
sweep a large majority of the Northe»^n States, 
we should carry some of the Southern States, 
and establish this country upon the solid foun¬ 
dations of permanent peace and happiness. 

Mr. President, I have therefore sent to the 
Chair the amendment which, with the consent 
of the honorable chairman of the committee, I 
am allowed to propose ; an amendment which 
says that nothing in the sections which we are 
about to adopt shall be construed to mean that 
the rights, franchises, and privileges already 
secured by the Constitution of the United States 
to any American citizen shall be impaired or in 
any wise affected. Such an amendment can 
do no harm. If the power for which I contend 
does not exist in the Constitution now, these 
words can at the worst be regarded but as sur¬ 
plusage ; while the thousands and the hundreds 
of thousands of the American people who this 
day believe that the powtr does exist there; the 
hundreds of thousands who believed it to exist 
there even before the late constitutional amend¬ 
ment, like my friend from Massachusetts, will 
the more readily support the amendments which 
the committee have reported when they see and 
when they feel assured that there is nothing in 
the amendments which will deprive the citizen 
of rights already guaranteed by the Constitution 
of the United States. Believing as I do as a 
lawyer, believing in my heart that under the 
constitutional amendment abolishing slavery 
within the United States, every inhabitant of the 
United States (excepting unnaturalized foreign¬ 
ers, whose case is regulated by the Coustitution) 
is as free as I am, and entitled to the same rights 
and privileges that I am, I have sent to the 
Chair this amendment which I desire to pro¬ 
pose, so that there shall not be even a color for 
any judicial decision pro^^osiug to deprive me'- 
of rights which are already guaranteed by the 
recognized law. 

Mr. President, if the Senator from Pennsyl¬ 
vania who its by my side [Mr. Cowan] were 
here, I vvjuld say to him that it is not radicalism 
that I fear. My fear is not that this Congress 
will be too radical. I am not afraid of this Con¬ 
gress being shipwrecked upon any proposition 
of radicalism; but I fear from timid and cow¬ 
ardly conservatism which will not risk a great 
people to take their destiny in the r own hands 
and to settle this great question upon the prin¬ 
ciples of equality, justice, and liberty. That is 
my fear. 





3 


So far as nay position is concerned, it is un¬ 
changed; my convictions are the rather strength¬ 
ened, and if I had it in my power to day, I 
would write it in plain words upon the face of 
the Constitmion, plain as the stars upon the 
sky, not in tortuous and hard-to-be-understood 
propositions; yes, I would write in the funda¬ 
mental and unchanjieable law of the laud, that 
the Declaration of American Independence is a 
verity; that all men are created equal; and hav¬ 
ing the powers which this Congress now has, I 
would prove my belief by making that declara¬ 
tion a reality. If this Congress of the United 
States could adjourn on the 4th day of July, 1866, 
having accomplished this great result it would 
be the greatest epoch in the annals of time. 
At the termination of such a war as this, with 
its miifhty events and sacred memories, signal¬ 
ized by its grand armies and itegrander issues, and 
by the blazonry of the great achievements of 
our sons upon so many glorious battle-fields, 
after so much blood and so much treasure had 
been spent, I could but hope that the Congress 
of the United States would come up to the 
grand results that are taught by the events of 
this war, anc. by the emergencies by which we 
are surrounded, and proclaim the true principle 
and the only principle upon which this Govern¬ 
ment ean live. 

I am true to the theory of my Government. 
I believe, I religiously believe, that the strong 
common sense of all the people, of the popu¬ 
lace of America, is the salvation of the Gov¬ 
ernment of the United States. 

My distinguished friend from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Doolittle]—and he is really my friend—claimed 
that he was the savior of our party because he 
had prevented the issue of negro suffrage from 
being made in the State of Wisconsin last fall 
Sir, a man who could claim to be the instrument 
of conferring these great and inalienable rights 
upon his fellow men might with some propriety 
claim to he the savior of his party and of his 
country. Does the Senator remember the gal¬ 
lant colored regiment from the State of Wis 
consin, one thousand strong, who went out 
and bore up our flag amid the storm and thunder 
of battle? And he calls himself a savior of the 
country because he has been the instrument in 
the hands of Providence of presenting them 
from exercising the right of suffrag^i. Sir, his 
comparison of himself with our blessed Saviour 
was true in only one respect that I know of, and 
that is that he will most certainly be crucified- 
If, on the other hand, he could have come for¬ 
ward and said, “I stood by you; you were true 
to your country in the hour of its calamity and 
its affliction; we called you to the help of the 
Government! you came and stood by us in the 
hour of our calamity;” if he had made a sacri¬ 


fice of himself in such a glorious act of hu¬ 
manity and human liberty—if sacrifice it could 
be called—it perhaps might not be considered 
blasphemy to compare himself to Him whose 
mission upon earth it was to “proclaim liberty to 
the captive, to break every yoke, and let the op¬ 
pressed go free.” 

Not so much of a victory was that in Wis¬ 
consin. The honorable Senator said with an air 
of triumph that negro suffrage had been beaten 
by nine thousand votes. Look at it. After two 
hundred years of foul oppression, of accumula¬ 
ted prejudice against a race, when politicians 
dare not assert their anti-slavery opinions, at the 
very first election in the State of Wisconsin 
negro suffrage lacked only nine thousand votes, 
according to his statement, of being carried ; 
and I am prepared to believe that with his pow¬ 
erful influence it would have been carried trium¬ 
phantly. 

Mr. President, we may legislate on this ques¬ 
tion of suffrage. We may attempt by indirec¬ 
tion to find direction. We know that we aim at 
suffrage ; why n^t say so, and that we will have 
it? Already suffrage is upon uu. Colored men 
vote in Wisconsin to-day under the authority of 
legal decisions. Iowa has boldly proclaimed by 
a majority of her citizens that she is for suffrage. 
Connecticut gained upon her last vote. Even in 
the slave States, Tennessee and Texas are on the 
vergq^of suffoage ; and before these resolutions 
shall have been passed upon by all the States, 
suffrage, in spite of all our legislation will be an 
accomplished fact. The honorable Senator has 
not prevented, neither he nor Congress can pre¬ 
vent suffrage. It will override all political plat 
forms and opposing forces. Seven hundred and 
fifty thousand voters loyal and true to the Union 
must and shall be had against treason and se¬ 
cession, and in favor of the preservation of this 
Government and the principles of human liberty. 

It Is to me the strangest thing in the world 
that while we deny four million loyal men— 
men who have been loyal under all circum¬ 
stances, who have been true to the country 
everywhere, in war and in peace—while we deny 
lo them the rights of American citizens, we are 
prepared to extend all privileges to the men 
who have tried to destroy and to overthrow the 
Govern mrnt. There is no propriety, there is no 
good taste in such yearnings over rebels and 
traitors, while we deny right and justice to our 
friends. 

We listened to the Senator from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Cowan] a day or two ago, and he seemed 
to think that to deprive a mao of the right to 
hold an office was the highest punishment that 
could possibly be inflicted upon him; and he 
supposed a most affecting case, but a case 
which is utterly impossible, that my friend from 
Michigan [Mr. Howard] had been a traitor, and 





4 

had been excluded from the rif^ht to hold office, 
and that be wished to be a candidate for the 
United States Senate, and his wife and children 
would gather around him and say, “Why can¬ 
not my husband or my father be a Senator ? He 
is as e;reat as any of those men there ; why can¬ 
not he be a Senator ?” Simply because be has 
not the right to hold an office. “It is,” says 
that Senator, “a punishment; it is the mark of 
Cain upon his brow; it is the wolf head upon his 
brow. He has no rii^ht to be a Senator; other¬ 
wise my husband or my father would be in the 
Senate as well as other people.” 

Sir, let us suppose another case. Here is a 
man, Jeff. Davis, Winder, or Dick Turner, or 
some other notorious traitor. He has been the 
cause of the death of that boy of yours. He has 
shot at him from behind an ambuscade, or he 
has starved him to death in the Andersonville 
prison, or he has made him lie at Belle Isle sub¬ 
ject to disease and death from the miasma by 
which he was surrounded. When he is upon 
trial and the question is, “Sir, are you guilty, 
or are you not guilty?” and he raises his blood¬ 
stained hands, deep dyed in innocent and patri¬ 
otic blood, the Senator from Pennsylvania rises 
and says, “For God’s sake do not deprive him 
of the right to go to the Legislature.” The idea 
is that if a man has forfeited his life it is too 
great a punishment to deprive him of th^ privi¬ 
lege of holding office. ' 

But I stated that I should make but a very few 
remarks, and I now come to the point which is 
more interesting to all of us, and that is, strange 
as it may seem, with these views in my mind, 
and while I subject myself to the criticism of my 
distinguished friend from Indiana, [.Mr. Hend¬ 
ricks,] [ shall support these propositions. They 
are not such as I desire. They do not come up 
to the stand-point which 1 have set for myself. 
I think that Congress has failed to come up to 
the stand point of the people in this regard; but, at 
the same time, as I cannot get the position for 
which 1 have so earnestly contended, I will sit 
quietly by, as I have sat quietly by, and take the 
next best proposition that I can get. I believe 
in the good common sense of my friend irom 
Maine [Mr. Fessendeu] who says that if he can¬ 
not get the best dinner he will take the next 
best; if he cannot get the best proposition he 
will take the next best proposition. 1 have a 
good deal of faith like that of my friend from 
Ohio, [Beuator Wade,] and, while 1 would not st¬ 
ate the proposition quitcjso broadly as he does, yet 
I always feel perfectly safe when I am in the hand® 
of a good Republican Uui'iii party; and I would 
rather trust to the wisdom of the Senator from 
Maine and the collective wisdom of the,Benators 
by whom I am surrounded than to stand alone 
by myself and assert that I was the only man in 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



0 028 070 897 5J 

the world who understood this question. I only 
act upon a principle that the Senator from In¬ 
diana and myself and all of us act upon hero 
every day. We propose to amend propo' 
pitions, and if those amendments fail we go for 
the proposition itself, notwithstanding our 
amendments are not adopted, notwithstanding 
the best thing is not in it; and that is my posi¬ 
tion to day. 

There are other points in these constitutional 
amendments to which I will not refer, except 
to say that my judgment approves of them. I 
am for the exclusion of traitors and rebels from 
exercising control, and power, and authority in 
this Government until they have shown fruits 
meet for repentance. I am for the faithful pay¬ 
ment of the national debt. I am for the repu¬ 
diation of the rebel debt. I am against com¬ 
pensation for slaves, as lam against compensa¬ 
tion for any other rebel property. But above 
all there is in the first section a clause that I 
particularly favor. It is this: 

All persons born in the United Slates, and 
subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of 
the United States and of the States wherein they 
reside. 

And then it goes on to provide that thei** 
rights shall not be abridged by any State. We 
have here, in the Constitution of the United 
States of America, a guarantee which protects 
us from future judicial tyranny such as we have 
experienced under the decisions of the Supreme 
Court. We have a declaration as to who are 
citizens of the United States. If this amend¬ 
ment of mine could be adopted, that in the 
constitutional amendments which we submit 
we do not propose to confiict with any rights 
which have been heretofore guaranteed by tbg 
fundamental law, the Constitution of the United 
States, I should be still more satisfied. 

But, sir, there is another feature in this pro¬ 
position, and that is, that although we do not 
obtain eufl'rage now, it is not far off, because the 
grasping desire of the South tor office, that old 
desire to rule and reign over this Government 
and control its destinies, will at a very early day 
hasten the enfranchisement of the loyal blacks. 

While gentlemen upon the other side of the 
cnamber are opposed to these measures as too 
radical, I am opposed to them, so far as I may 
present points ot opposition, becau e they are 
not radical enough. At all events, therefore, 
we have the medium between extremes; we have 
moderation. If we do not meet the views of 
the Radicals on the one hand, or the Democracy 
upon the other, we have the medium, the mode¬ 
ration which has been agreed upon by the col¬ 
lective wisdom of the American Senate. I am 
glad that T can go before my constituents and 
say that ia the whole history of the world there 
never were such terms of moderation and of 
magnanimity proposed oy the visitors to a 
vanquished foe as by tnese resolutions, which 
have been reported by the committee of fifteen. 








